TED2006: Al Gore on why climate change is not debatable

Bonus evening session of TED2006 (site - background): running notes.

How many times have you heard that the former US vice-president Al Gore was boring, wooden, stiff? While in office, he even joked about it himself: "Al Gore is so boring that his secret service code name is Al Gore".
And here he is speaking at TED - bonus evening session - for almost an hour, a rare exception to the 18-minutes keynote format that producer Chris Anderson imposes on everyone. And Al Gore is keeping the audience's attention with a passionate and energetic speech about the dangers of global warming. Truth is: when he speaks about his pet topic, Al Gore is riveting.
"We face a global emergency, a planetary emergency", he says. It is a climate crisis; and "there are enormous challenges, but also great opportunities to respond to this emergency by making the XXI century a century of renewal, and in the process address other problems that haven't yet been addressed".
He shows the picture of the Earth reproduced in this post (taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts) and explains how that created a new awareness of the planet as a limited, fragile ecosystem: the environmental movement's origins go back basically to this image. He discusses the continuous growth of CO2 in the last decades. He strongly disputes the argument that the current warming is a cyclical phenomenon - and shows data convincingly supporting his position. He illustrates through a series of impressive pictures the melting of the Kilimanjaro snowcap ("in 15 years there won't be any snow left there") and of most other glaciers all over the world.
Gore shares sets of numbers and shows graphs indicating significant climate shifts: the ten hottest years ever measured have been in the last 14 years, and the hottest was last year; the oceans' temperatures are rising, as well as their acidity; global warming creates both more flooding and more drought. He reminds that permafrost is thawing: in Alaska the number of travel days went down in 20 years from 225 to 75 a year because the roads, built on permafrost, "melt away". He says he's worried about the stability of the gulf stream Atlantic current. He talks about the increase in intensity and duration of tornadoes and hurricanes. He points out that the Arctic cap acts like a giant mirror deflecting sun rays away from the planet, and as it melts (and it is melting fast) the warming will accelerate. He indicates that the diffusion of new deseases and resurgent deseases is also influenced by climate. And he offers a telling figure: the US is the primary producer of carbon emissions (30.3%) but Europe is a close second (27.7%).
Global warming remains a controversial issue: for some (including the current US administration) it's still a theory rather than a fact. Gore acknowledges that, but then (turning more political towards the end of his speech) he quotes Churchill: "The time for procrastination and delays and excuses is over, we are into a period of consequences - think Katrina - and we must act now". He adds: "We have no more than 10 years within which we can make a difference; otherwise it's too late. It's a question of political will, but in a democracy political will is a renewable resource, and we need to renew it".
Chris Anderson asks Gore if he plans to run for political office again. Gore: "I'm not planning to make another race for president. I'm now spending most of my time on this issue of global warming".

PS: on that, Gore is also the main character of a new movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", which got standing ovations at last month's Sundance Film Festival. Producer Lawrence Bender (of "Pulp Fiction" fame) is attending TED. The film is a documentary following Gore as he travels from city to town warning about the imminent dangers of greenhouse gases - and doing it (unlike his former boss, Bill Clinton) for free.

(tags TED2006 - TED 2006)